REVIEW Fisherman’s Friends: the Musical
Photo Credit: Pamela Raith
★★★
Reviewer - NATASHA
*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review.
Fisherman’s Friends: the Musical retells the unlikely story of a group of Cornish fishermen whose sea shanties achieve popularity above and beyond their wildest dreams. The show is an ultimate crowd-pleaser, providing a positive and uplifting experience to the delighted audience who rewarded it with rapturous applause and a standing ovation. It’s likely to be a huge commercial hit. And there is no denying that the music, particularly the soaring a cappella harmonies and vocal talents of the cast, is beyond critique. Judging the show critically as a production, however, when there are so many fantastic musicals on tour and in the West End, I found the story, pacing and overall experience sadly lacking, uneven, and overlong. There is a lot that misfires in this comfortable, middle-of-the-road musical, despite its populist appeal.
The show markets itself as a musical but in reality is a series of gorgeous, harmonious performances loosely linked together by a flimsy storyline - a jukebox sea shanty musical, perhaps. It is rare that the songs reflect, support or develop the plot or convey the requisite emotion in a scene. Instead, we have a twee rags-to-riches, anonymity-to-overnight-fame narrative accompanies a fantastic score, and it lets the production down. There are too many characters, and they remain largely one-dimensional. The community is all old-fashioned gender roles and heterosexism, and the comedy is equally old-school; although appreciated by the captivated audience, I found it frequently unfunny. Token nods to sexual diversity were appallingly actualised. It’s not quite what I would have expected from the writer, and dramatist Amanda Whittington - perhaps the real difficulties lie with the source material, Fisherman’s Friends: the Movie. But there is no denying that the majority lapped it up, in the same way that they might enjoy certain “classic British sitcoms” that make me cringe. (If you are drawn in by the tagline “the true story of the Cornish chart topping buoy band”, it is probably more your cup of tea than mine!)
What saved the show from being a complete washout for me, however, was of course its soundtrack, from the stirring opening notes of an accordion to the luscious, layered sound of the fishermen’s numbers. A band of folk musicians and a drum kit are part of the staging and the musical numbers are a highlight and a delight. Every single performer sang, danced and acted their socks off, enthusiastically giving this peculiar show their absolute all. They were amazing, including swing Dominic Brewer performing a central role. The musicianship of instrumentalists and vocalists was superlative - as it says in the script, at times there’s something spiritual about the music that’s made. Voices and harmonies were absolutely sublime.
I think this show will appeal to many - just possibly not to contemporary musical theatre fans whose 2023 must-sees are more along the lines of Cabaret, Bonnie and Clyde, Next to Normal, Six, Heathers or Everyone’s Talking About Jamie. It’s not a bad show - it’s packed with standout musical performances and amazing energy. I just feel that the play itself simply doesn’t do the music justice. I love it when the songs in musicals help tell the story, are embedded in it, rather than accompanying it. (Ironically, the one song that achieved this was not a performance by the fishermen but a duet of the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B, exquisitely harmonised by Parisa Shamir as Alwyn.) Instead, the fantastic shanties were shoe-horned into a conventional, humdrum situational comedy script, which I felt was more yawn than yarn. But you, or others that you know, may absolutely love it, just as the opening night audience did and fans of the movie are sure to. Why not go and see for yourself – or sea for yourself, I should say!
Fisherman’s Friends: the Musical is currently on tour – next stops are Sheffield, Southampton, Canterbury, Richmond, Brighton and Oxford. Full tour information is available here.
